I've been home one week now, and it has been a glorious week. I've been wandering around muttering thanks for really important things like sandwich meat, curling irons, and running shorts. Clearly, I have my priorities in the right place.
However, before the memory fades, you need to hear about what happened in Uganda those last two weeks. Okay, maybe you don't need to hear it, but I need to have it written down, because what He did, both externally for me and internally in me, blew my mind.

Y'all, I just can't even begin to describe to you how bad of a finisher I have always been. I'm a great starter. Enthusiastic in the middle. But crossing the finish line? So hard for me.

So there I was, everyone else had left. Russ and the girls were on a different continent and the boys and I had passports in hand and a presumably smooth two week process to finish this adoption and get home.

Yeah, not so much.

In that two weeks, an avalanche fell. The storm broke. The flood gates open. Pick a metaphor.

We went for our medical check up only to get some very frightening news. I kid you not, at one point I was sitting in the bathroom with both boys at IOM calling Russ at 2:00AM his time crying and panicking.

I spent the next two days walking around weeping, until I finally got back in touch with IOM only to find out it was nothing to be concerned about, it just caused a slight delay in our paper work.

Delay. That word. Ugh.

Since I knew we were past our medical check-ups I started gathering the boys paperwork. It was a wreck. Things that should have been done were left out. Entire affidavits were missing from their court file that I had seen with my own eyes just a month before.

I continued walking around weeping. I was furiously sending emails and trying to gather papers to no avail. All of the sudden we finally had the coveted embassy appointment right in front of us and I was devastated and terrified.

The mental battle was even harder than the physical issues, I was heartbroken at having my family separated. I was terrified about how long it could take to sort out our paperwork issues. And I was mad. I was mad that God could let this happen to two little boys who had just learned about life in family.

Ohhhhhhh, was I ever mad. I was so mad, I quit speaking to God.

Just in case you think giving God the cold shoulder works, it doesn't.

So somewhere in all of this my brother-in-law sent me a scripture, which, in itself is a little bit of a miracle, because he is crazy busy and not prone to emailing me, and I am not usually prone to checking my email.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, 6and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled. 2 Corinthians 10: 3-8

And it brought me to my knees literally. That night I stayed up breaking those verses into sections and writing down prayers for each section. I furiously scribbled out the words I couldn't manage to choke out of my mouth, or even force into my thoughts. I borrowed Paul's words and sent them right up to God.

The next day we got an embassy appointment. I stopped scrambling. I even stopped weeping. I knew it was likely to still go bad, but I was fortified. Every night that week, I pulled out a scripture and broke apart the words to send back to God.

Wednesday we went for our document check. I got lectured for the missing documents, but they still gave me and interview for that afternoon.

Oh, that interview. I was harshly questioned, until once again, I was in tears. At one point the interviewer told me , "Please go sit in the waiting room and then we can come back and discuss your options for the upcoming week."

THE UPCOMING WEEK!?!?!?

Meaning, not getting on an airplane and coming home?

Listen, I turned into a crazy prayer lady. I sat there in that waiting room, watching my boys wrestle on the ground, sobbing, and praying Out Loud in front of everyone the scriptures that had sustained me that week.

It was maybe the most Pentacostel moment of my entire life.

And then we got the visas. And I RAN out of the embassy for fear they would change their mind.

Those weeks were hard. I choked on the words of prayer that I had been lifting up to God over and over again. I couldn't spit them out one more time.

But he gave me words. He gave me his very own words. And he put them in my head, and he put them in my mouth and asked me only to believe them and return them right back to Him.